Monday, March 29, 2010

Sniffer Dog Saves the Day!

Oh yes - today was definitely one of my best 'Woah - that was lucky' moments. And perhaps a 'Thank God I'm Deaf' moment.

For many years - my parents have always called me the 'Sniffer Dog'. I can literally smell anything and it used to drive my Mama INSANE! It has always been thought that due to my hearing loss - my other senses are stronger - and in my case - that would be my scent! I have fond memories that are associated with smells - my HATES are - watching my Dad's football team and smelling the Deep Heat oozing from their skin, the way my Dad smelt after mowing the lawn, the smell of fish cooking on Good Friday (YUCK) and countless other smells that would sent me hurling! But then, there are always great memories too - smelling Mama's cooking, or the neighbour's BBQ wafting into your house, or the smell of the Jacarandas blooming. And even now - I love the smells of Moo after her bath, my Mr H's aftershave and my favourite is....the smell of HOME!

Sorry - back to my Chaos in the Kitchen Tale.....

Well - it's harvest time on the farm here so with harvest - there is always an abundance of food and goodies for the workers, especially Mr H. So, as Moo and I are planning an Easter away with my family, I spent the day in the kitchen cooking and creating treats to compensate for our absence!

With Moo supervising - I was making double choc biscuits - the super sweet, fudgy-wudgy type - thanks to Donna Hay! So to add to the sugar mix - I had to melt chocolate. After watching my Mama do it countless times - I put the chocolate in a microwave container and placed it in the microwave to be nuked. Pressed START and went off to do the next task....

Then my instincts kicked in and my Sniffer Dog nose went sniffing. Sniff Sniff Something DOES NOT smell right....Sniff Sniff ...plastic....smoke....burning.... OMG!! I opened our microwave to be enveloped in billowing smoke........yep - you guessed. The chocolate burnt the container and my microwave was under seige! The kitchen was soon a haze and now as I sit here and write this - I can still smell the smoke in my hair....

And after I cleaned up the mess and organised the chaos - Mr H came home, smelt the smoke and simply said..... 'What the HELL are you cooking'! I simply handed him a biscuit and I am happy to report that the biscuits were a TREAT along with the casseroles, sandwich fillings, etc etc!

A chef, mama, wifey, firefighter AND sniffer dog....all in a days work.